MARY woke next morning to a feeling of uneasiness, so that she knew,
before she could remember why, that she must brace herself to meet a
disagreeable day. Then the sight of her maid, trim and composed, looping
back her window curtains, reminded her of Florrie's letter. That was bad
enough, but she soon realised that she could only turn from it to other
anxieties. What had happened to the poor pretty child, what was James
thinking, and what was Mary herself going to say to Miss Percival?
She tried to dismiss this last annoyance by telling herself that she was
a coward. Miss Percival, as a secretary, could not seem curious about
what her employers, in their Olympian privacy, had said to one another,
and she must necessarily put the best face on what she was told. But
this was small relief to Mary, who had so little need to dread harsh
words that she had trained herself to reckon with thoughts. She now felt
the weight of Miss Percival's private disappointment more severely than
that lady seemed likely to feel it for herself. But after all, this was
nothing compared to her disloyalty to James. She had pretended that she
did not hear James when he opened her door last night, and he had gone
away, believing that she was asleep. She dressed quickly now, to avoid
meeting James in her own room. In the dining-room she would be better
able to persuade herself that she hadn't, practically, deceived him.
Keeping back Florrie's letter she did not consider deceit; she was
accustomed to use her judgment in the matter of shielding James from
worry, but the other affected their emotional relations.
In the dining-room she found Rosemary, unexpectedly in time for
breakfast. It was one of Rosemary's charming gifts that she could
saunter downstairs at noon with the air of dewy freshness proper to an
Arcadian milkmaid. Trent was there too, for Trent counterbalanced his
sister's masculine carelessness of time by a beautiful punctuality.
Their presence shielded Mary from the affection which James, had they
been by themselves, would certainly have shown. After her first relief
it seemed terrible to Mary that she should be thus welcoming obstacles
between herself and the display of James's love. She tried in vain to
assure herself that she didn't feel guilty, that her heart beat faster
not for James, but for poor little Florrie, that if it cost her an
effort to look up from her coffee pot it was merely because she did not
wish to trouble her daughter with the anxieties that destroyed her own
appetite. She knew all the same that somewhere, in her thoughts, in her
actions, she had overstepped an ancient boundary; if she was not yet
disloyal she was running the risk of disloyalty. At any rate she was
allowing herself, unknown to James, a new attitude of mind which, when
he came to realise it, he might not share.
In a moment James would be there! Mary forced her mind back to the table
in front of her, poured herself out some coffee, put in two lumps of the
sugar she detested, drank it, and then blushed crimson at the proof she
found of her own preoccupation. She looked up, instinctively, but no one
had noticed her. Rosemary was eating bacon; Trent was reading the
_Times_ with an air of kindly tolerance. Trent would dearly have loved
to be a Unionist, for the Unionist assumptions soothed his gentlemanly
instincts, but he could not see his way to anything but loss from a
protective tariff. Trent dealt in luxuries; if he charged more for his
cakes his customers would eat fewer. He could picture them, in all their
plebeian meanness, eyeing the dish and stilling their appetites with the
saw that too many sweet things are bad for the teeth. But the article he
was reading did not allude to this cause of stumbling, and his
complacent smile turned Mary's uneasiness to a wave of irritation. Why,
she asked herself, had she a fool for a son? What was there wrong with
him, or with his surroundings, that after twenty-six years of life, with
health, with plenty of money, his mind should have acquired nothing from
experience but the simple cunning of an animal? She seemed, for the
moment, to detach herself from Trent, to see him as coolly as though she
were not his mother, pledged to admire him. His fault, poor youth, was
that of being slow to receive impressions. He had will and capacity and
application, good qualities that came from within, but the walls of his
mind had no windows. His dogmas, his attitudes, he took from the
children with whom he had been at school; when Trent was an old man his
spirit would still be that of a little boy in a lower form. Other women
congratulated her upon having a son so handsome, with such good brains,
who would deign to become his father's right hand and live quietly at
home. Other women's sons went into the army, at best, or they brushed
their hair back from their foreheads and spent money in ways their
mothers couldn't approve, or, having brains, they caused great anxiety
by thinking with them.... Mary had always pitied the mothers of these
young men, but now, with a pang, she realised that beneath their
smoothness they might have pitied her, have thanked heaven that their
boys weren't sticks like poor Mrs. Heyham's.
At this point Trent put down his _Times_ and asked her pleasantly for
some more coffee. Mary, as she took his cup, felt a wave of
self-reproach. What had happened that she should be bitter like this? He
was a good boy, a dear boy, as handsome as possible, and as fond of her,
and for his affection she had given him secret contempt. She was, as a
matter of fact, the luckiest woman she knew. She looked across at
Rosemary, to fortify this feeling, and was rewarded by a pleasant
picture. The blue dress the child wore showed the clear tones of her
skin and the long lines of her chin and throat. Mary loved Rosemary's
chin; there was a soft place underneath it where she had always kissed
her when she was a baby. The engagement ring Mary hated was out of
sight. That was a pretty thing to have at one's breakfast table--Mary
felt that she must talk and be cheerful instead of letting the meal pass
in silence. "Have either of you seen your father?" she said, to this
end.
Rosemary looked up. "He's gone. He had something to see to down at the
works. He had breakfast at eight. And he wants your car at twelve as
Trent is using his to-day."
To Mary this came as a fresh proof of her own unkindness. Poor James,
away working for them all before she was down, gone without a kiss or a
good-bye because he was considerate of her sleep! Gone without a
suspicion that his wife had been criticising him and practically lying
to him! Mary's impulse to talk passed. She was humbled; she hardly felt
relieved when she realised that she would not have to face him until a
day lay between her and her deceit.
Meanwhile Rosemary had come to the end of the table and was bending down
to kiss her mother. "Good-bye, darling!" she was saying, "I'll be back
to dinner on Monday. I'm going for a walk in the Mendips with Margaret,
you know. I've never seen them; they ought to be lovely in this
weather."
Mary kissed Rosemary and Trent frowned. Trent did not approve of girls
going for walks by themselves. At least, if she let them go, Mary should
have spoken a word of caution!
Rosemary saw the frown and left the room with a cheerful smile.
Mary followed her. It had not been at all a cosy breakfast.
When she went into her room she found that Miss Percival, that perfect
young woman, was already waiting.
"There's something I want you to see," Mary told her, and showed her
Florrie's letter. Miss Percival read the letter slowly, without moving
the muscles of her face. Then she gave it back. "I'm afraid it looks
like the usual thing!" she said, in a voice that took the place of a
shrug.
This cynicism affected Mary painfully. "The car is coming in a minute,"
she said, with a grave look. "I thought we had better go to Exe Street
at once and see what has happened for ourselves. I've looked up your
notes, and I see that Florrie Wilson is living with an invalid mother
who is a widow with some means of her own. She said that her mother is a
lady, but I expect that was only her way of saying that they had seen
better days."
"Or it might just be her idea of good form," suggested Miss Percival.
"One has, after all, in Florrie's walk of life, to be one's own College
of Heralds."
Mary looked surprised. Then she retired to put on her hat and to ponder
a sentence that clashed with her notions of Miss Percival.
No. 100 Exe Street was a dirty little house in a dirty and depressing
street. The few inches of garden in front of it were ornamented with two
large white shells and various old tin cans. Its windows were shut, and
as much light as possible kept out by torn lace curtains. It did not
look like the house of one whose acquaintance with better days had been
at all intimate.
Mary would not let the chauffeur ring the bell; she could not be as sure
of his manners as of her own, and she waited with Miss Percival for
several minutes before anyone in the house responded to her gentle pull.
Then the door opened a little, and they could see a strip of a woman
with bright red cheeks. She stared at the two visitors suspiciously,
then she stared, with more interest, at the car. Finally, when Mary had
asked her twice whether Florrie was in, she replied that they could go
upstairs if they liked, and see. Top landing, back room. She shuffled
along the passage in front of them and disappeared down the stairs that
led to the odours of the basement.
Mary dismissed the car, since James wanted it, and went into the house.
She wished to think well of Florrie, but as she climbed the two flights
of stairs she was assailed by a doubt as to whether Florrie could be a
truthful girl. She had said that she lived with her mother in a nice
little house, and here she was, apparently a lodger in a house whose
stairs were the stalest Mary had ever smelt and kept by a most
disagreeable looking woman.
Mary knocked at the door of the back room on the top floor, and a voice
that was not Florrie's told them to come in. For a moment, when they
were inside, Mary thought that they must have made a mistake, for as she
turned towards the window she saw a bed in which a stout woman was
sitting, a shawl over her shoulders and some work in her hands. The
stout woman however seemed to expect her. "You've come for my Florrie,"
she said politely. "She'll be back in a minute. Won't you sit down,
ma'm? Florrie was expecting you, and she's got the room straight, but
she didn't think, being gentry, you'd be 'ere so soon."
Mary stared at her for a moment. She was fascinated. The woman's face
was not stout, it was puffy, livid, swollen. It cost her an effort to
say thank you and to find herself a chair. There were only two chairs in
the room; Mary took the sound one and Miss Percival the one with a hole
in its seat.
Meanwhile Mrs. Wilson continued to address them, but as she spoke
bitterness overtook her and her voice reverted to its natural sharpness.
"She's gone round to Moses's," she went on. "She seems to 'ave some
maggit in 'er 'ead about it's not being safe. I tell 'er it's safe
enough, a sight too safe, and we shall be lucky if every stick we got
ain't safe the same way soon. So she goes and looks in the winder to see
if it's out for sale." Mrs. Wilson's words gathered speed and her
crochet-hook jerked rapidly backwards and forwards. "To lose a good
place like that, ma'm, with me dependent on 'er, when she might 'a'
married a gentleman too! And look at us now--where are we--with 'er
character gone, and nothing put by for the rent? It isn't as if I could
do anything with me 'ealth so bad, and the pain keeping me awake all
night so I don't sleep a wink. And there's no market for crochet now,
along of them niggers!"
Mrs. Wilson's shawl heaved, showing glimpses of pink flannelette.
Mary was puzzled. "But what is it that has happened?" she said. "I don't
understand. What is Moses's and what has Florrie done? And I thought you
and she had money of your own that you lived on? Money your husband left
you?"
Mrs. Wilson's reply was not coherent, but Mary gathered that Wilson had
never left nothing to nobody but worry and trouble. What money Mrs.
Wilson had she made, a shilling or two a week it would be when the Turks
allowed one to make anything. Further, Florrie had lost her place, owing
to a bracelet and to a man she didn't never ought to have had nothing to
do with. And Mrs. Wilson had once been second housemaid in a very good
house, where she had been very differently brought up to what girls were
nowadays. The end of this explanation was confused by large tears which
rolled down the poor woman's distorted face and needed to be wiped away
with the corner of the blanket.
Mary tried to express a reassuring interest while she turned her eyes
politely from this intimate and unpleasant misery. Mrs. Wilson mustn't
distress herself, Mary was only there to see what could be done. She
would find some way out--there could be no doubt about it--it was only a
question of taking courage for an hour or so. If Miss Percival had not
been there Mary might have gone across to the creature who was sobbing
so wretchedly, so grotesquely, on the bed, but her volition was
paralysed by the thought of Miss Percival alert to take everything down.
She looked round her, waiting uncomfortably for some lull in the snorts
and groans which were shaking the opposite corner of the room, and tried
in this interval of inaction, to collect her impressions and to clear
her mind.
The one thing, up to this point, that admitted no doubt, was that poor
little Florrie, whatever else she might be, was also a liar. She had
deceived Mary, and Mary could not help feeling that she had also
deceived Mrs. Black. James selected his managers with care; he would not
have put Mrs. Black into the position she held unless she could be
trusted to keep the firm's most important regulations. Very well then,
Florrie must have obtained her own post under false pretences,--that
legal phrase, slipping unbidden into Mrs. Heyham's mind, seemed to shed
an even deeper gloom over the affair.
But as she examined the room where Florrie lived, while the primitive
woe of Florrie's mother offended her ears, Mary's hatred of deceit
became less uncompromising. It was a small room, and the stains made by
damp on the walls and ceiling were freshly reinforced. The window was
small, and shut, and some torn muslin was held across its lower half by
a sagging tape. There was a varnished table in the middle of the floor,
a cupboard at one end of it, and a packing-case by the fireplace covered
with odds and ends of bedroom china. The wall-paper was yellowish brown,
and on the mantelpiece there were some ancient ornaments and two scarlet
paper fans. It wasn't a place, in its dreary stuffiness, where ascetic
virtues would make a strong appeal. Mary began to understand why
Florrie, armed for the conquest of life by a becoming cap and apron, had
invented this romance of a lady mother. She felt that even she herself
would have needed something to shield her from the realities of such a
home. She scanned the room again for traces of the girl's presence.
Florrie's best hat hung on a nail on the wall, and a petticoat hung
beneath it, but Mary could see no signs of any other bed. It was some
moments before she realised, with a sense of shock, that pretty Florrie
slept in the bed in the corner side by side with the diseased woman who
had bad nights.
This was hideous, it was revolting--nothing in the world could make it
right! Mary shivered with the intensity of her repugnance. A sudden
picture of Rosemary came into her mind. The two girls were the same age,
and what gulfs lay between Rosemary and such contact with corruption!
She turned her eyes again to the shameful bed, drawn by the fascination
of her own horror. She saw then what her agitation had not let her
notice, that Miss Percival had left her seat and was bending over Mrs.
Wilson. Miss Percival's reserve had gone; for a moment, as she stood
motionless, her shadowed face revealed a conquering passion. Its wide
eyes, staring across the room, saw nothing; she was shaken by an emotion
that closed the avenues of sense. Then, as Mary's surprise was growing
into wonder, the drawn muscles quivered and relaxed, and Miss Percival
turned, with a swift movement of pity, to slip her arm round the huddled
woman on the bed.
"Poor mother," she said, stroking the swollen hands, "don't cry, my
dear, don't cry! You're not alone now; we're going to stand by your
Florrie and help her face the trouble. You mustn't be too hard on her;
she's a good girl, you know! See how well she looks after you, and how
clean she keeps the room! A great many girls wouldn't do that, with the
hard day's work she has. She may have done wrong, poor tired little
thing, the world's too hard for us all sometimes, but think how pretty
she is, and how bright, and how she's stuck by you and stood up for you!
Why, she won't even have it that you're poor and ill; she always tells
people what a fine mother she has, a lady she said you were, and that's
because she's fond of you, and won't have others look down on you!"
Mrs. Wilson could not have heard half of these rapid words, but they
succeeded in changing the current of her thoughts. Her moans ceased;
Mary saw her pull the shawl together across her chest and turn to the
young woman stooping over her. "Pretty?" she said earnestly. "She's as
pretty as a summer's day, my Florrie is! They men's been after her ever
since she left school! It's a wonder to me she's kep' straight the way
she 'as. But she should 'a' known--" here the unhappy creature was
shaken by fresh sobs--"as that swine wasn't after no good with 'is
dimon' bracelet! What would 'e be givin' 'er a dimon' bracelet for? A
dirty little cur like 'im? Stands to reason!"
Miss Percival smoothed back the hair that hung over the woman's face.
"So Florrie took his bracelet, did she?" she asked softly. "But why did
she lose her place? Was he a customer? If that's all I'm sure we can put
it right!"
But Florrie's mother did not seem able to answer. She covered her face
with her hands and bent over her matted blanket. Miss Percival seemed to
think it enough that she was crying more quietly, for she said no more,
but stood, still with her arm round Mrs. Wilson's shoulder, looking
steadily at the wall.
Mary, if she had been alone, could have hidden her own face in her hands
for self-contempt. She was the leader in this adventure, she was the
mother, she the woman of age and experience, the woman who had taken
credit for keen perceptions and ready sympathy. And here she had sat,
hard, cruel, disgusted, shutting out kindness and pity from her heart
while a girl, her paid secretary, had taken her place. She had despised
these poor creatures because their ugliness and their sin were spread
before her, but what of the sin, the deceit and pride she had been
hiding in her own heart? She had despised Trent a few hours ago because
his mind was shut to everything that did not accord with itself, and now
what was she doing but thrusting out her own notions, her prejudices and
daintinesses to shield her from the suffering that came with a knowledge
of suffering? It was nothing unusual that was happening here; it was
unusual to her only because she had escaped her share of the world's
misery.... Mary's conscience was always ready to accept a conviction of
sin.
But after a time even Mary sought for relief. As she sat stiffly on her
chair, her head bent, her hands clasped, rigid with the pain of thought,
a little quick idea ran across her mind--the Insurance Act! She caught
at it, embraced it with relief. Five shillings a week for life--meant
for such cases as this! Her own housekeeping cost her fifty pounds a
week, but just now her mind was tuned to a different scale. She smiled,
she raised her head, leaned forward hopefully. "Miss Percival, what
about the Insurance Act? Couldn't we get Mrs. Wilson into an approved
society? She ought to be getting disablement benefit!"
The sound of her employer's voice made Miss Percival start. She had not
been thinking about the Insurance Act. When she looked round to face
Mary's hopeful expression she did not look as if her thoughts had been
pleasant. "Mrs. Wilson is not an employed person," she said, as briefly
as if she had been speaking to a fool, "and anyway, no society would
take her with her health like this." Then she turned back to the wall
with her look of dislike accentuated. Mrs. Wilson, who had been
recovering, groaned feebly.
Mary flushed, and then leaned back again. She would accept the snub, but
she must think it over. She could see now that the Insurance Act would
not help Mrs. Wilson, but that was only an accident, a matter of dates.
It would help the Mrs. Wilsons of the future. Her mind felt eased. She
wished she knew more about the Act. She was resolving to buy a sixpenny
book about it when her honesty reminded her, uncomfortably, that there
was little to ease her mind in an Act which she had done nothing to
bring about--an Act of which she hadn't, as a matter of fact, approved.
She had obeyed the law, but she felt that it was hard on the
servants--she wished she could feel sure that poor Florrie had obeyed
the law!
The room was quiet now, Mrs. Wilson had stopped crying, and Mary's mind,
confused by the unaccustomed nature of the facts presented to it, and
their incompleteness, wandered foolishly between the problem of her own
responsibility for the distress of the poor and the probable nature of
Florrie's offence. She was also harassed by a recurring recognition of
the stuffiness of the room.
She had decided, vaguely, that there must always be rich and poor,
because there isn't enough money to go round--though we ought to do more
than we do--and also that Miss Percival was probably right, and Florrie
had been detected taking presents from customers, when Florrie came in.
Mary did not recognise her for an instant--the figure in the doorway
lacked the good looks of the girl at Chelsea--then she saw that Florrie
was merely looking shabby and ill.
"Good morning, my dear," she said, resolved now, at least, to do more
than her duty, "I'm glad you've come back."
Florrie came forward into the middle of the room. Her expression, Mary
thought, was almost sullen. She jerked her head towards her mother. "She
told you?" she asked.
"Nothing that I could understand. Your mother is very unhappy, Florrie!"
"That you may well say, ma'm, me own daughter treating me like this!"
added Mrs. Wilson, who had assumed an air of self-righteousness and
freed herself from the shelter of Miss Percival's arm.
Mary spoke hastily to interrupt her. "I am sure you will prefer to tell
us yourself."
Florrie took off her hat and put it down on the table. Then she arranged
the tips of her fingers in a neat line along a crack in the wood.
Finally, without looking up, she began to speak. "'E's been followin' me
'ome every night for the last month," she said. "Time and again I've
asked 'im not to, an' I've tried to run away from 'im, an' once I took
the bus, but 'e knew I couldn't go on with that. An' none of the others
don't come my way. An' 'e's offered me everything you can think of,
jewels an' choclits and take me to the theatre, an' a glace silk dress,
an' I wouldn't take one, because I saw what 'e was after, the dirty
beast. An' I never 'ad no drinks with 'im, only once an ice off a
barrer. That was fore I knew 'im well. An' I've cried in the street,
I've been that wild with 'im. 'E knew I'd no one could do anything to
'im. 'E's called at the 'ouse even, an' told 'er downstairs I'd invited
'im! Me invite fellows up 'ere!" Florrie looked up at this. Her eyes
were red.
She did not go on for a minute, her hands were trembling, though she was
pressing them against the table to keep them still.
The silence was broken by Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson seemed excited; she
was leaning forward, her shawl dragged tightly round her shoulders,
nodding eagerly at each of Florrie's phrases.
"Don't you stop, Florrie," she said. "You tell the ladies, me girl. Jus'
you tell them what 'e done!"
Florrie looked slowly at her mother, then turning away she told them.
"Then one day 'e came and said I'd broken 'is 'eart, and 'e were goin'
away and I shouldn't never see 'im again. An' 'e'd brought me a partin'
gift, an' when I'd taken it 'e'd go, only not before. An' I was that
bucked at gettin' rid of 'im I was fool enough to take it. It was a
dimon' bracelet in a real leather case. An' 'e said good-bye, an' would
I think of 'im sometimes, an' I said not if I could 'elp it, an' we
parted. An' mother 'avin' been so bad I took it straight roun' to
Moses's that night. I suppose 'e must 'a' followed me, for 'e waits a
day or two, till I'd spent the money, an' there 'e was at the corner
wanting to know if I were ready to do my part of the bargain. I told 'im
there weren't no bargain, told 'im I wouldn't go with 'im for a hundred
dimon' bracelets, and then 'e said--" she stopped again.
"You go on--you say it, darlin'!" Mrs. Wilson's excitement was growing.
"'E said I'd stole it, an' if I didn't give it back 'e'd 'ave me put
away!"
After that nobody spoke for a moment. Mary was trembling, Miss Percival
was white, Mrs. Wilson looked from one to the other of them, nodding her
head with an air almost of triumph.
Then Mary remembered that there was more to hear. "My dear," she said
quickly, "my poor little girl, you mustn't trouble about that; we'll get
the bracelet back, and if you like we'll call it a loan and you can
return it when you have the money," Mary did not want to crush Florrie
with a sense of obligation--"but how was it that you lost your place?
Did the man tell his story to the manager?"
Florrie stood quite still and did not answer. Mary waited for a minute
and then glanced across at Mrs. Wilson. The invalid had assumed a
piteous expression; she looked back mysteriously and shook her head, but
when, after a considerable silence, Florrie still did not speak, she
could bear the silence no longer, and she turned upon her daughter. "Now
then," she admonished her, "you tell them! Don't you go shirkin' the
'ard part! If the ladies is to 'elp us they must know the 'ole truth!"
She looked at Mary for approval.
Florrie, whose attention had been caught by her mother's tone, saw the
glance. "Well, then, I won't tell them!" she cried. "I'm not going to!
Tell them yourself as you seem to enjoy it!" She flung herself into Miss
Percival's chair, her face turned away from them over its back, and Mary
could see that her shoulders were shaking.
Mrs. Wilson tried to look shocked. "Well, if she's got one of 'er wicked
tempers, ma'm, an' won't tell you, then I must!" she said, "though far
from enjoyin' it! Well, then, 'e came after 'er, worryin' every day,
till she felt desprit, as she must get the money, so--that I should 'ave
to say it--she tried to see if some ole keys we 'ad would unlock the box
where Mrs. Black keeps the silver. An' not only they wouldn', but Mrs.
Black catches 'er at it, so of course she couldn't see 'er way to
keepin' 'er, so now she's lost 'er place, and no character, any foot on
the stair may be the police, and we've 'ad nothin' to eat but a cup o'
tea since yesterday dinner time and the rent owing, and the Lord 'ave
mercy on us, for I don't know what we're to do!"
So that was it--Florrie was a thief. An hour ago Mary would have been
shocked by this, now she was angry, giddy with anger. This world in
which she had been happy for so long had become intolerable, and Mary
resented it. It was monstrous that these things should happen, and that
no one should care. Mary's indignation consumed all thought of guilt or
care of responsibility. She turned to Miss Percival with a decision
which the morning had not yet found in her. "What are we to do?" she
said. "They must have something to eat, and I suppose we'd better get
back that bracelet without loss of time?"
Miss Percival agreed. "I wish," she added, "that we could get hold of
the man!"
Mary shivered. To face a man like that was more, she thought, than she
could do.
Then she went over to Florrie. "My dear," she said, "if you'll put on
your hat and show us where the bracelet is, we'll get it back for you,
and we must bring a pie or something for your dinner." Mary had a vague
feeling that poor people generally eat pork pies for dinner.
Florrie stood up. She looked stupid, as though she did not quite
understand. "'E's outside!" she said. "Followed me 'ome."
Mary was startled. She could hardly believe that the unspeakable evil
thing was so close. "He won't hurt you when we're with you," she told
Florrie, but her heart beat faster. The girl put on her hat and they
left the room without another thought of Mrs. Wilson. She was lying back
against her pillow, her swollen face pale and distorted, and she did not
speak.
When they reached the street Mary looked round her fearfully, almost as
though she had a sense of guilt. She felt as if she were taking a
furtive peep at an indecent picture. There was no one near the garden
gate of No. 100, but some way off on the other side of the street a man
was leaning wearily against a lamp-post. "That's 'im!" said Florrie.
"'E'll follow us--you see!"
They turned off down the street and Mary knew for the first time the
choking excitement of the chase. She would not look round to see whether
the man was following, every instinct forbade it, but she could not help
wishing that Florrie would do it for her. This did not seem likely;
Florrie's eyes were fixed far ahead, and every line of her shoulders
expressed an unyielding singleness of purpose. It was extraordinary that
she did not seem to mind whether the man were there or not. Even the
bold Miss Percival was looking at the ground. Mary's nervousness
increased--he might, for all they knew, be quite close to them! Finally,
at a corner, she found that she had looked round without meaning to. The
man was there, about twenty paces behind. He was little and young and
fair and very unhappy, not at all the red, gross creature he ought to
have been and that Mary had expected. She covered the rest of the
distance in a tumult of nerves that did not allow her to see where she
was going.
It was only as they entered the door of a shop that she made an effort
to recover her self-command. This, of course, must be the pawnbroker's.
Mary had never been into a pawn-shop before, and she expected to find it
an interesting place. It was not. Neither the empty counter before them
nor the walls of the compartment that hemmed them in presented any
features of interest. The young man behind the counter was not even, as
it happened, a Jew.
Meanwhile, Florrie, trembling and intense, had produced her ticket. The
young man took it in a perfectly ordinary way. Mary realised suddenly
that he was accustomed to pawn-tickets.
"Thirty-five bob," he said.
Mary looked at him with astonishment. She would hardly have been
surprised if he had asked for so many pounds. Florrie at her side gave a
little soft sob of agonised suspense--Florrie was wondering whether it
was too much.
Mary put back the cheque-book she had been innocently taking from her
bag, and brought out the necessary money. As she put it on the counter
Florrie caught hold of Miss Percival's arm to steady herself. The
assistant was gone now and the shop was spinning round Florrie in
circles of yellow light. There was a fine dancing halo, especially,
obscuring the door through which he had disappeared.
He was not away long, and when he came back he was unwrapping a little
parcel. Florrie, shaking all over, held out her hand for it. Inside the
parcel was a leather case; the young man, as he handed it to Mary,
opened it.
There lay the bracelet. Not even a lady, Florrie felt, could deny its
glories. It was a golden snake with a beautiful pattern of scales on its
back, and in his eyes there sparkled two small diamonds.
"A pretty thing," said the young man, in a sociable tone. "Real gold,
nine carat." Before he had finished Florrie was out of the shop and Mary
was obliged to follow her without replying. It was a corner shop, and
Florrie had turned into the little side street instead of the busier way
by which they had come. As Mary came out she saw that the fair young man
was staring into the window of a tobacconist next door. When he saw
Florrie coming he hesitated and then stepped forward to meet her with a
nervous smile.--"So you've got it--" he was beginning, but she did not
let him finish. "Take that, you muck!" she said, and threw it at him.
Then she turned her back on him with a laugh of triumph.
The little man did not seem to have felt the leather case which had hit
him on the chin. For a moment he stood still, staring after Florrie,
then, suddenly, he pulled his cuff across his eyes.
"She's gone!" he said to himself, and when he raised his head, Mary,
disgusted, could see that he was crying.
The little man did not mind Mary. He cried for a little and wiped his
eyes again, and then stooped to pick up the bracelet that had fallen out
of the case at his feet. He did not look at it, but slipped it into his
pocket, and then walked away down the street, still sniffing. He was a
miserable little man; Mary, immorally, felt sorry for him.
She was recalled to more fitting sentiments by Miss Percival's voice in
her ear.
"Don't you think Florrie had better have something to eat at once?" she
said urgently. "She's hysterical!"
Mary agreed, and they moved away to an eating-house known to Florrie.
The interior of the eating-house, unlike the pawn-shop, was full of
interest, but Mary forgot to study the people seated at its tables; nor
did she drink the milk, which, to put Florrie at her ease, she had
ordered for herself and Miss Percival. She was very much puzzled by the
fair young man. He ought to have shown forth his wickedness on his face,
he ought to have filled Mary's soul with a shudder of loathing, and he
had not. She had meant to banish the subject as quickly as possible from
Florrie's mind, but she could not help--when Florrie had finished her
soup--asking her a few questions.
"Why couldn't he have offered to marry you, my dear?" she said. "Is he
married?"
Florrie was feeling better now. She put her spoon down neatly like a
lady, and answered with some of her old deference:
"No, he's not married, ma'm, but he's a gentleman. He's a merchant in
his father's office and he lives at home and gets a pound a week. His
father would have turned him out if he'd married me. Or he would have,
he told me so. But I wouldn't never have married 'im. He wasn't my
sort." Her attention wavered to the sausages which the waiter was
putting before her.
This composed reply added to Mary's discomfort. If the villain who had
tried to wreck Florrie's soul lived on a pound a week, he must have
saved up to buy the bracelet. Or perhaps he hadn't paid for it, perhaps
he wanted to take it back to the shop himself. Mary couldn't believe
that that feeble little man would ever have prosecuted Florrie. She
reminded herself that he hadn't been too feeble, all the same, to drive
the poor child to stealing. What a horrible tangle it was! She left the
table hastily and went to the counter, where she bought eggs and
sandwiches for Mrs. Wilson. She realised that she was, more or less, in
charge of Mrs. Wilson and suddenly she felt very tired.
But Mrs. Wilson's future was a burden that Mary was to be spared. When
they arrived on the doorstep of No. 100, they found the landlady was in
the hall waiting for them. She was full of importance, of mystery,
almost of triumph. She addressed herself to Florrie. "Your ma's been
took bad," she said, "just after you gone out. I 'eard 'er shriek, as it
'appened, an' I sent for the doctor. But it wer'n't no good, the poor
thing were gone before he came. It's a miracle she lived so long, 'e
said!"
Mary was conscious of a great relief.